so what exactly is the impeachable bengazi offense?

[Xithras]

33. Technically, you don't need a crime to impeach.

Benjamin Franklin, who proposed and helped to write the impeachment provision in the Constitution, once said that it was written in such a way that it could be used whenever a President "rendered himself obnoxious." Supporting documents have also found that it was originally written to permit the removal of a President for "whatever reason whatsoever".

There was some discussion about this back duing the Clinton fiasco. During that impeachment, he was accused of a "High Crime", which includes an official perjuring themselves under oath. He was accused of an actual crime, but a crime isn't required.

In the 1970's Congress declared that the term "High Crime and Misdemeanors" is a term of "high art" (meaning it has a definition beyond it's literal words). The Supreme Court has additionally ruled that High Art terms in the Constitution (which also include terms like Due Process) must be legally interpreted using their definitions at the time of their writing, and not our modern definitions.

Nowadays, "misdemeanor" means a crime. In the 1780's "misdemeanor" simply meant a minor offense, criminal or otherwise, and included things like being an unfit leader, incapacity, negligence, "perfidity", "maladministration", misconduct, and on, and on. Generally speaking, it can be applied to any behavior that the House of Representatives believes demonstrates an unfitness for leadership.

Given the mental gymnastics that so many Thugs have resorted to with the whole "Natural Born Citizen" thing, I'm not too shocked to see some of them attempting wordgames with this too.

I don't see it going anywhere though. Impeachment for non-crimes hasn't happened in the past for one simple reason: Once a Congress impeaches a President simply because they agree with him, it WILL become a regular thing for future Congresses. Nobody wants to see Congress replacing every President they disagree with. If Congress were to impeach Obama over his alleged "leadership failures" with Benghazi, can you imagine how quick they would throw out the next GWB? The gloves would come off, and politics would get a lot nastier in this country.